Harvesting reels, such as a pickup reel, a draper reel and a gathering reel, are used on agricultural machines to guide the crop to a cutting means as well as, if necessary, a feeding shaft. The reel is supported by a supporting pipe in the center of the reel, the longitudinal axis thereof forming the rotational axis of the reel. The reel includes a plurality of tine rods or bars extending transversely to the direction of travel with protruding tines for engaging the crop. The tine bars rotate with the supporting shaft of the reel. Individual tines are connected to the tine bars and extend generally outwardly and/or downwardly to engage crop material.
On a wider header, the harvesting reels are configured as two separate reels positioned side by side with a support arm between the reels. The support arm prevents mounting traditional fixed tines or fingers in the center of the reel (i.e., between the reels) resulting in crop feeding stagnation and crop wrapping. As a result, during use, there could be poor crop feeding between the reels and wrapping of material around the support arm.